How much does it cost to run an electric stove burner?
We've pre-filled an typical electric stove burner below. Set your electricity rate and adjust the hours to match how you use yours — the cost updates instantly.
A single electric stove burner draws 1,000 to 2,500 watts depending on its size and how high you've got the dial turned, so "cost to boil water" and "cost to simmer sauce for an hour" are two completely different bills. On a smaller coil or 6-inch burner at medium heat you might pull 1,000 watts; crank a large burner to high and you're closer to 2,500 watts — more than twice the draw for the same hour of cooking.
Where a stove burner actually saves you money is duration: most cooking tasks run 10-30 minutes, not the hours-on-end you'd run a heater or a dryer, so even a hungry 2,500-watt burner rarely adds up to real money in a month. The bigger cost lever isn't the burner rating at all — it's how many burners you run at once and whether you're using a small pan on a large burner, which wastes heat (and money) around the edges.
What drives the cost of running an electric stove burner
- Burner wattage varies 2.5x (1,000-2,500W) depending on burner size and heat setting, so the same 30-minute simmer can cost very different amounts on a small vs. large burner
- Runtime is usually short — minutes per meal, not hours — which is why a stove burner rarely rivals big continuous loads like a water heater or space heater despite its high wattage
- Coil and standard glass-top burners lose more heat to the air around the pan than induction, which heats the cookware directly
How to cut it
- Match pan size to burner size — a small pot on a large burner wastes heat (and money) radiating around the edges
- Use residual/carryover heat: switch electric coil or radiant burners off a few minutes early and let retained heat finish the job
- Cover pots while heating or simmering so you're not fighting evaporative heat loss with a higher setting
- If replacing a range, induction burners heat the pan directly and use less energy than coil or standard glass-top for the same cooking result
Common questions
How much does it cost to run an electric stove burner per month?
At a typical 1,500W and about 1 hour a day, an electric stove burner costs roughly $7.65 a month at $0.17/kWh. Set your own rate and hours above for an exact figure.
How can I cut the cost of running an electric stove burner?
Match pan size to burner size — a small pot on a large burner wastes heat (and money) radiating around the edges
Is an electric stove burner more expensive to run than the oven?
Per hour of use, a large burner on high (up to 2,500W) can draw more than an oven set to a moderate baking temperature, but ovens are usually on much longer — 45 minutes to a few hours versus a few minutes per burner task — so a single bake typically costs more in total than boiling or searing on a burner.
Does induction really cost less to run than a coil or glass-top burner?
Yes, modestly. Induction transfers energy straight into the pan through a magnetic field instead of heating a coil or glass surface first, so less heat escapes into the air around the cookware — real-world estimates put induction 5-10% cheaper per cooking task than coil or radiant glass-top for the same food.
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